Feels Like Christmas!
by Rose's.wings
Summary: Aria finally introduces the wonderful season of Christmas to the Autobot younglings! What follows may just be the biggest explosion of holiday cheer the universe has ever seen! Either that or the poor kids will be traumatized for the rest of their lives...
1. Chapter 1: Feels Like Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody! In case you don't know already, this is connected with my longer story _I Lost A World! _and Aria is my energetic, somewhat brash, original character who watches over the Autobot younglings on a regular basis. Now I hope you're ready for the slew of youngling/Aria/seasonal madness that's about to come your way, cause the younglings are about to find out what Christmas is! And the ensuring shrieking makes Aria wonder if maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. ;)

Just so you know, I'm writing these chapters as quick as I can and then posting them without too much proofreading so I can get them up faster. So if anything is grammatically majorly wrong (like whatever it was I just said) then I'm sorry and feel free to point out the mistakes so I can fix them when I have more breathing room.

Also, that Christmas Tree I use as the cover of this story. I made it. n_n; Yay me! Okay, bragging time over. ;3

And with that I leave you to hopefully enjoy the little bots to come. And I ask that you please leave me some reviews! I mean, it _is_ Christmas after all! ;3

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Feels Like Christmas

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1 - Feels Like Christmas - 1

^..^

"_It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Toys in ev'ry store.  
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be  
on your own front door."_

_^..^_

It seemed to Aria – current human population of one on the war-torn planet of Cybertron – that living with the Autobots was pretty much long stretches of horror and pain punctuated by times of extreme silliness. Usually the silliness only lasted a little while, maybe an hour, and you had to be in the right place at the right time to see it. But generally Aria was sure she missed it. The bits of silly were just too rare and too small for everyone to share.

So if the silly wouldn't come to everybody, then Aria would make sure that everyone came to investigate the silly. Or at least get sucked into it by her sheer stubborn willpower.

Right now, she was walking down one of the many halls in the Autobot base, singing as loud, and as well, as she possibly could to get everyone's attention. Which even then, made some bots cringe as she and the little troupe of younglings following her passed by.

_"It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!" _She shouted somewhat musically out as she walked._ "Eeeeverywheeeere you gooooo!"_

Behind her, Bumblebee blinked as he and the rest of the Autobot younglings followed their organic care taker through the base, an odd load of shiny things in her arms.

"But…that's because you've been putting it everywhere Jie Mei." The little yellow bot pointed out, sounding rather confused by her song.

They were all just the little bit confused to be honest. But then, this was Jie Mei they were following. Confusion followed her around even more then they did, especially when she felt like she had to have another of her human holidays again.

But that was okay. The younglings actually liked their adoptive sister's celebrations. They were lots of fun, even though they didn't always make a lot of sense. And with the war against the Decepticons still going on, there wasn't a lot of fun for the little bots to have anyway. Jie Mei could make them smile when no one, and nothing else, could.

Even if she was – and they all thought this extremely lovingly – a bit…cracked.

"Sooo…" Arcee, the only femme out of the group, drawled curiously as she and the others followed Aria into the rec room, "what're you doing again Jie Mei?"

Aria finished humming the next line of her strange, organic tune as she plonked all of the stuff she was carrying on a counter that was low enough for her and the younglings to reach.

"I'm getting ready for Christmas!" Aria answered the pink femmeling brightly. Then without further explanation, she picked up one of the frayed wires she had taken out of Wheeljack's 'This Didn't Work Out Right' box and began to tack them up on the wall.

The younglings were all very confused by this.

"Why'd you even take that Jie Mei?" The biggest of the younglings, Val, asked as he cocked his head to watch.

"Cuz' it's shiny." Aria told him, jumping a little to get the makeshift decoration up higher so that the grown up bots would be able to see it.

Val and the others didn't look any less confused.

"But," Cloudraker, one of the Seeker mechlings, put in now, "the rubber coating's all gone, and the wires are all untwisted and hanging down funny."

Aria just smiled and jumped again, sticking the tip of her tongue out in effort. "I know!" She giggled between jumps. "Ain't it great?"

The seven younglings all looked at each other. In the end, Mudflap said what they were all thinking.

"You're weird Jie Mei."

Far from offended, Aria giggled. "Because that's what makes life more fun!" She told them with a wide smile. "Now how bout one of you give me a lift so everyone else can see this too?" She asked.

Even though they had no idea what she was doing, the younglings weren't about to miss out on whatever pandemonium she was about to spread. "I've got it Jie Mei!" Fastlane, Cloudraker's brother, volunteered with a loud shout. Like his brother, he'd just started learning how to fly. Well, he wasn't _really_ flying yet, only hovering a few feet off the ground, but try telling him that.

Before Aria could say anything, Fastlane leapt forward and grabbed her before jumping as high as he could. Aria gave a startled squeak when he did, but Fastlane was too excited to notice.

Some of that excitement evaporated, however, when gravity reclaimed him, and he and Aria landed without incident back on the ground.

Frowning in confusion, Fastlane jumped up and down again.

"Why. Won't. It. Work?" He asked, adding a new word each time he jumped.

Aria was starting to feel just a little bit sick. "Ugh-gh-gh-gh!" She groaned as the eager Seeker kept trying to fly up off the ground with each jump.

Somewhere over the sound of Fastlane's jumping and to her left Aria heard Cloudraker sigh dramatically. "You forgot to use your plane-starter." He told his brother, meaning the special engine that the different flying Cybertronians had that let them get in the air.

Fastlane stopped jumping long enough to blink.

"Oh," he mumbled a moment later, "right."

Still held in Fastlane's hands, Aria, held her head in her hands and groaned somewhat pitifully.

"That's enough sugar for you…" She groaned in a feeble imitation of some Disney movie or another.

The twins glanced at each other and then cocked their heads at Aria. "What's sugar?" They asked. It sounded promising.

But then the high pitched whine of a small, little used engine started up, cutting off any further explanation. Aria looked down and watched with a small gasp as her feet slowly left the floor.

Aria glanced up to see how the mechling was doing. Distantly she wondered if she should tell him to stop since she was pretty sure Smokerunner didn't want Fastlane hovering by himself yet.

The mechling in question had his face screwed up tight as he used all his little might to get off the floor with his hands wrapped around Aria, who was only a few inches shorter them him now.

The other younglings watched with the kind of awe that was usually reserved for movies or fireworks. And when Fastlane finally got his feet up on the counter that so far neither he, Aria, or the rest of the tiny bots had been able to reach, they all gave a little cheer.

Aria smiled, thinking they were as proud of Fastlane as she was.

But then she heard one of the twins whisper loudly, "Wow! We can get up on counters now!"

"We can finally see what the grown-ups keep up there!"

Aria made a face. She knew exactly what they kept up there. And she also knew that all of the good stuff was about to mysteriously migrate to higher shelves and cabinets with youngling-proof locks on them.  
Despite his cooling systems working harder then before, Fastlane drew himself up proudly. "Ta-da!" He crowed, making Aria laugh. "I did it!"

"Hey!" Cloudraker suddenly whined down on the floor, only just now realizing that his brother was disobeying their guardians' rules, _again_. "Smokerunner and Cloudcover told us not to do that Fastlane!"

Fastlane just twitched his little wings, making the bright red speed lines painted on them flash triumphantly. "You're just jealous cuz I can do it without their help and you can't." He gloated.

Cloudraker chirped something angrily before giving his brother a metallic sounding raspberry. Fastlane returned the favor before Aria had a chance to remind them to behave.

Down below her a sweet little voice suddenly asked, "What's 'crismess' Jie Mei?"

Aria looked down, momentarily distracted from the boys, to find Arcee staring up at her. Unlike the organic femme, Arcee had much more practice at ignoring the mechlings, mainly because she refused to pay them any attention when they were doing something stupid, like now.

"And why's it shiny?" Bumblebee asked, optics glowing a little brighter.

"It sounds messy." Skids said, wrinkling his nose up in distaste, making Aria laugh behind her hand some more.

"Yeah, I don't like holidays that make you clean up." His twin brother Mudflap added.

All of the youngling's gave their own various, "Yuck!" at that, even Cloudraker and Fastlane. Awhile ago, Aria had tried explaining the idea of spring cleaning to them one orbit when their playroom was particularly trashed. She had tried to play it off as a holiday game to get them to help her. A sort of 'whistle while you work' kind of atmosphere.

It hadn't worked.

In fact the words 'epic fail' might be a better description.

Aria shook her head to put aside the stunning failure that had been 'cleaning day'. "No!" She told the younglings with a laugh. "This is a strictly no whistle-working holiday."

The younglings immediately relaxed.

"Whew!" Fastlane said dramatically.

"Well what is it then?" Val asked.

"Is this the one where we got to paint Sunny green again?" Arcee asked excitedly.

Cloudraker giggled sneakily. "I _like_ that one." He proclaimed with a grin.

The rest of the younglings giggled in agreement. Aria bit her lip, making her smile lopsided. "I know," she told them, "Best. Holiday. _Ever._"

Arcee gripped the edge of the counter above her head and jumped to try and see Aria better. "So it's that one?" She asked with a wide grin.

Aria looked off to the side. "Oh, um, no. It's not that one. Sorry guys."

Arcee stopped jumping. "Man…" she whined, "that's one of my favorites."

Bumblebee however, looked back up at Aria, still curious about this whole 'crissmess' thing. "So what is crissmess Jie Mei?" He asked, leaning up on his tip toes to try and see her over the counter top.

"Yeah, is it fun?" Fastlane asked next to her. Somewhere during the talk about painitng Sunny, the little Seeker mech had sat down on the edge of the counter. Now he was leaning back on his hands and kicking his short legs over the side of the counter as he looked at his organic caretaker.

Aria nodded. "Oh yeah, it's one of the biggest holidays ever where I live. It's the last one before the year changes so it's usually _really_ cold," she rubbed at her arms and shivered dramatically for the youngbots. Some of them laughed a little at her silly antics.

"What's it for?" Arcee asked, quite innocently.

Aria suddenly found herself searching for a way to explain something as complex as religion to a bot that was the around the equivalent of a five or six year old.

Aria sighed. It was just so nice to know that even halfway across the galaxy explaining religion made her feel…awkward, no matter what she thought or believed herself.

"Well," Aria said, determined not to disappoint the bright blue optics that were watching her or herself, "it started off as a purely religious celebration." She started.

"What's 'reelig-juice'?" Mudflap asked.

"Is it tasty?" Skids piped up.

Aria's eyebrows drew together. How _did_ someone answer that?

"Uh, no, it's not something you eat. It means it's part of a…a belief. OH!" Aria suddenly shouted, making the younglings jump when she abruptly thought of a better word. "It has to do with faith!" She told them, extremely proud of herself.

The younglings exchanged glances. They sorta knew what she meant.

"Anyway," Aria went on when the younglings didn't say anything more, "a long, long, time ago a very special baby was born-"

"What's a baby?" Val asked curiously.

"An organic sparkling." Aria put in smoother then before. She'd been expecting that one. "So this little sparkling was born and at first no one but his creators and a bunch of sheep and cows saw him-"

"What's a cow?" Fastlane interrupted with a grin.

Aria's mouth puckered in annoyance. They were just doing it on purpose now. She looked around her little group with flat eyes. They were all grinning and trying to hide it from their frustrated sister. Occasionally a giggle slipped through though.

Aria just sighed. "You know what, I'll explain it when you're older. And have a bigger vocabulary…" she mumbled.

The younglings just giggled at her some more.

"Does that mean we don't get to have crissmess now?" Bumblebee asked.

Aria blinked, annoyance evaporating quite suddenly as her sudden desire for holiday cheer abruptly sprang up again. "Well, no, Christmas has sort of…grown, I guess you could say-"

Cloudraker's optics grew very round. "You mean crissmess is _alive?"_ He asked in a hushed whisper.

"Yes and no," Aria said quickly moving on so as not to get mired in another question game, "what I meant was there are a lot of different things that make up Christmas now. Like trees and lights and snow and-"

Aria suddenly realized she was quickly losing their attention. Without anything to compare Christmas too, her words meant nothing to the younger bots.

Eager to share the delight and joy she always felt around December, Aria leaned forward, her secretive actions immediately drawing the younglings' attention back to her.

"But I think the part you'll want to hear about _most_…" she said with a mischievous grin as she lowered her voice, "is about Santa Claus."

Aria saw their optics widen infinitesimally in uncertain excitement. She bit back her triumphant grin, glad she had finally found something to they could get excited about when their recharge every night was interrupted by bombs and missiles exploding only a few miles from their heads…

…and then realized that it wasn't excitement in the younglings' optics at all, but borderline anxiety.

"Santa…claws?" Skids asked nervously, leaning closer to his brother just to be safe.

Aria's face suddenly fell. "No," she said raising what she hoped was a calming hand, "no, no. Not 'claws' like scary sharp things," she promised, "'Claus' like…like…"

Her eyebrows furrowed when she realized she actually had no idea what the Claus in Santa Claus stood for.

"It's…part of his name."

Bumblebee cocked his head. "Like the 'Ultra' in Ultra Magnus?" He asked.

Aria jumped on the idea. "Yes." She told him.

Some of the anxiety faded from the little bots' optics, but they were still regarding her somewhat uncertainly. They had thought this organic 'crissmess' thing would be fun, but what with the claws and the still unexplained cows, they weren't so sure…

"Santa is _not_ a scary man." Aria started with, hoping to reassure them further. "He's this big guy dressed in red and fur and black boots that laughs a lot because he's very jolly and people leave him cookies when he comes down the chimney-"

"Isn't a chimney part of a human house?" Skids asked.

"Yes-" Aria started with an excited smile.

"You mean," Bumblebee said slowly, an uncertain look on his face, "he…comes into your house?"

Aria's eyes suddenly grew twice as wide. The realization that Bumblebee and the other younglings had grown up in war-time and only knew that strangers coming into their houses led to _horrible _things like murder and kidnapping, came and bodily slapped Aria upside the head.

_"Uh-oh…"_ She mentally groaned as she guiltily looked at each of the young bots watching her with large, trusting optics. _"Maybe…this wasn't such a good idea after all…"_ Aria thought to herself.

"No!" Aria shouted, holding her hands out in front of her to stave off any more anxiety that might be floating in the air just waiting to latch onto her little bots. "Well, I mean, yes, he _does _come into the house-"

Fastlane's optics grew even wider. "While you're all sleeping?" He asked in an uncharacteristically high voice. Aria could practically hear the words 'and vulnerable' tacked onto the end of that question.

"Do you even know this Santa Jie Mei?" Bumblebee asked in a rare show of suspicion.

Aria quickly looked to the side. "Well, yeah, sort of…"

"So," Arcee said slowly, watching her organic sister with narrowed optics that reminded Aria strongly of a certain weapons specialist, "you've met him then?" She asked hopefully.

Aria's eye flicked upward. "Well, no, not _technically_-" she started.

"So he's a stranger." Arcee finished for her.

"No." Aria said and then immediately changed her answer to, "Yes! But-"

"And you _let_ him into your _house_?" Fastlane demanded, voice even squeakier then before.

Aria blew out a quick breath, trying to think of a way to somehow salvage this entirely strange conversation. "Look, guys, no one has actually _seen _the real Santa-" Aria tried. Although how that was supposed to help she could never remember later.

Cloudraker gasped. "He's a spook!"

The younglings all gasped together.

"Santa-Spook!" The twins yelled as one.

Then all seven of them shrieked at once.

"Wait!" Aria shouted through the shrieks that were equal parts fright and over-energetic younglings.

The little bots all obligingly stopped and blinked at her.

Aria refused to move for a split-second, afraid that any sudden movement might start them off again.

"Santa." She said very, very slowly. "Does not. Hurt people."

The young bots' optics clearly said they were not sure about that.

"I don't know Jie Mei," Cloudraker was the first to find the nerve to speak, "he sounds awfully scary…"

"Yeah," Val said in a lowered voice, "he sounds like a Decepticon."

Aria facepalmed herself.

"Santa is _not_ a _Decepticon."_ She told them clearly.

_"This is getting us nowhere."_ She thought to herself. But that thought was quickly overridden by a wondering, _"I wonder if I just branded my forehead with a red handprint."_

"Look guys," Aria suddenly said a little tensely, "Santa gives younglings presents alright? That's what he does. That's the only thing he _ever _does. He doesn't hurt people unless they're gingerbread men."

The younglings started to lean away from her.

"They're _cookies_ guys." She told them quickly.

Arcee pouted. "Not in that story you told us." She reminded her.

"Yeah but he was a jerk." Aria defended herself.

The only reason the younglings didn't call her on that was because they were still under the impression that their older sister knew _everything_.

Fastlane's head snapped up as he suddenly realized something. "Wait, did you say presents?"

Six other heads pricked up at the desirable word. "Presents?" She heard them mumble eagerly.

Aria propped her hands on her hips. "Yeah, I figured that'd get your attention," she mumbled to herself before talking to her brood again, "Yes, Santa brings presents, but only," she said loudly holding up a finger, "to good little mechs and femmes." She told them.

Val snickered. "I guess that means you guys won't be getting anything!" He teased, giving Skids a shove that sent him colliding into his brother.

The twins managed to get in enough insults to satisfy their boyish pride before Aria stepped in. Then after a mandatory no shoving reminder to Val, Aria told them more about the now dubbed Santa-Spook.

"One night out of the human year," she told them, "Santa Claus gets in his bright red, er…" she barely avoided the potentially panic-inducing word 'sleigh' before she hurriedly thought of a new one, "_ship_ that's, um, powered by Santa's nine flying reindeer."

"What's a reindeer?" Val asked, actually wanting to know this time.

Before Aria could answer Arcee rolled her optics and laughed, giving Val a playful shove. "They're his ship's navigators of course Val. They're probably Santa's symbiotes." She told him.

Aria thought about contesting this, and decided not to. Especially since she the only thing she knew about symbiotes were that there weren't that many, and it seemed like Soundwave had most of that population in his chest.

An unnerved shiver ran down Aria's spine and she quickly tried to shake it away. If it meant not learning anything more about Soundwave's internals, Aria could deal with staying ignorant of symbiotes for_ever._

"Right…" the human settled for, "I guess…that might be it. So Santa and his reindeer travel around the whole world, in one night, and deliver presents to all the good children."

"Why's he do it while they're sleeping?" Fastlane asked. Clearly he was still worried about why some stranger would want to sneak into your house while you were sleeping, giving you presents or not!

"Well he doesn't want anyone to see him." Aria told him gently.

Finding this suspicious, Fastlane narrowed his optics at her and asked, "Why?"

"Well," Aria stuttered, "because he…doesn't want kids to try and catch him."

Fastlane chirped his uncertainty.

"Well," Aria said again, thinking quickly, "if everyone knew what Santa really looked like, they would want to hold him hostage until he gave them everything they wanted."

She nodded, pleased with her on the fly answer, so she didn't see the spark of an idea that appeared in Val's optics.

"And since he doesn't want that to happen," Aria continued, "he makes sure to only enter a house when he's sure the children are safely asleep."

The younglings thought about this.

"Ooo…" Arcee said slowly, as she finished mulling all this new information over. "Then what're all the shiny things for?" She asked, picking up a piece of metal that had vaguely been fashioned into the shape of star and showing it to Aria.

The girl just grinned. "Well what's a the fun of having a holiday if you can't make things look pretty right?" She asked them.

Arcee grinned back at her. Out of everything she and the others had heard in the past half hour, _this_ made the absolute most sense. Everybody knew Jie Mei liked pretty things.

And even though she would never, _ever_, say this in front of the mechlings, so did Arcee.

There was a string attached to the shiny star-like thing Arcee was holding and she slipped a finger through it, letting the shiny spin in little circles.

"What're you going to do with all this stuff Jie Mei?" Arcee asked as she watched the shiny thing spin.

She looked up though when she felt something catch on her helm. With an annoyed squeak she turned sharply and saw Bumblebee standing next to her, one hand raised after he put the whatever-it-was he'd put on her head.

The whatever-it-was suddenly swung into view before quickly swinging away. Arcee blinked, annoyance clearing away. It was a shiny, like the one she'd picked up.

Bumblebee chirped happily at her. "It looks pretty." He told her simply.

Arcee blinked at him, and then did the only thing that would make the squirmy feeling in her middle go away; she gave the yellow mechling a shove.

Bumblebee stumbled a step or two away before he regained his balance. He frowned at her and warbled something sharply.

Arcee pointedly ignored him, although she didn't bother to take the shiny he'd stuck on her off.

"So what are these things Aria?" Arcee asked, not noticing that Aria had never answered her first question.

Aria had been to busy watching the younglings to answer the pink femmeling and even now she had to bite back her own giggles. "They're ornaments." She managed to tell her sister. "Generally we hand them on Christmas trees with little lights and other shiny, pretty things, but since we don't have any trees I thought we could find something else to put them on."

As the human girl watched, Arcee picked up a couple more of the lopsided ornaments and walked over to where 'Bee was currently sulking, arms cross over his chest in a pout as he stared at the floor.

Before he could notice her, Arcee quickly dropped the bits of shiny on Bumblebee, letting the strings catch on the little seams between pieces of brightly colored armor.

Bee looked up just as one of the oddly shaped ornaments caught on the top of his head and ended up dangling right between his optics.

Arcee gave a satisfied click that ended in little laugh. "I think Bee should be our new tree." She announced cheerily.

The other young mechs laughed at the idea, but Bee was quiet as he watched the one ornament sway back and forth between each optic. From up on the grownup-sized counter with Fastlane, Aria watched uncertainly as her Bumblebee watched the shiny, thinking over something that Aria couldl't quite tell what it was.

And then quite suddenly, he smiled and started laughing with the rest of them.

"Nuh-uh, nuh-uh!" He said loudly as he got up, ornaments jangling against his armor. "You get to be the tree Arcee! You had the ornament on first!" He laughed at her before grabbing another one and trying to hang it next to the one already on Arcee's head.

"No way!" Arcee told him as she dodged the shiny. "If you won't be the tree then Val should."

"What? Why me?" Val asked loudly from where he thought he'd been standing on the sidelines.

"Because you're green!"

From there the argument quickly dissolved into a game of chase as the young bots all began to run after each other laughing, two or three ornaments held in each hand.

Aria laughed as she watched them try and hang the shiny things she'd found lying around Ratchet and Wheeljack's perspective spaces on each other.

"So who wants to help me find stuff to hang this on?" She called out once all the ornaments had found new homes on the little bots.

Seven hands immediately shot in the air to a sudden chorus of ornamental jangling.

"I do!" They all shouted.

Aria grinned before sliding off the adult counter to the human/youngling sized one before hopping down to the floor.

"Well let's go them," she told them before grinning playfully, "you guys got the ornaments right?"

The younglings all giggled. "Yes!" They answered before following Aria in a giggling, tinkering line out the door.


	2. Chapter 2: O Cyber Tree! O Cyber Tree!

:D Yay! Another chapter, which I am rather proud of because I wrote it beginning to end within 24 hourse! :D Actually...this one wasn't planned at all. I only wrote it because I felt the younglings' Christmas tree search needed a bit more resolution. And that in turn led to me and my sister giving a classic Christmas carol three new verses. ^,,^ That's also why this chapter's shorter too. It's spontaneous! :D

n_n; You'll see two of the parodies here, however Red's verse I think will come up later... xP I hope you all know the tune to O Christmas Tree, cuz you're going to need it. ;)

Thank you to Birgitte LP, DeathbyLackofMusic, and Pyroth Tenka for your reviews! XD They made me very happy! Did you know that you all started your reviews with various forms of 'Aww!' ;3 It was cute, so thank all of you! I'm glad you thought the younglings were so cute. n_n I have such fun writing them because, well, the _are_ cute. Adorable even. ::heart!::

And yes Pyroth Tenka, there will be more... ;) And reviews will help me write them! I mean, I have a pretty good chapter outline written out, but that (and personal motivation I suppose) go a lot farther when you know that other people are interested in what's going on. :)

So read, review, and enjoy Sunny and Sides' spontaneous singing! And thank you bunches! ;3

...

Feels Like Christmas

2 – O Cyber Tree, O Cyber Tree! – 2

_"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,  
You are the tree most loved!  
How often you give us delight  
In brightly shining Christmas light!  
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,  
You are the tree most loved!"_

The search for a suitable Christmas tree ended up leading Aria and the younglings to the most unexpected place.

"Clamp?"

"Clamp."

_Clank._

_ Zizz zizz._

_ Whir._

"Welding torch?"

"Welding torch."

Sideswipe slapped the hand sized welding torch into his brother's waiting hand. Under the halo of the room's single lit lamp, Sunstreaker didn't look away from the skeletal structure now lying on his and his brother's desks, which they had pushed together after agreeing to take the job offered to them by a bunch of squirming younglings and their organic caretaker.

Down at the floor, Aria crossed her arms and watched with a healthy amount of skepticism as the gold colored twin bent over what he _claimed _would be a Christmas tree by the end of this. His optics were narrowed in a rare form of concentration as sparks flew up from the different, larger welding torch he was using to connect the mini one to what used to be a gun rack before he'd gotten his hands on it. Even the fidgeting younglings gathered in his room couldn't make him look up from his work.

"You look like Ratchet." Aria observed.

The sparks abruptly disappeared, throwing more shadows into the small room, as Sunny stopped working and looked up just enough to glare at the offending organic femme.

"You say that again and I'll turn this crisscross thing into an organic-sized gyro-hamster tube for you to run around in." He threatened in a flat voice.

Aria opened her mouth to retaliate, but a worried whine behind her made her snap her mouth shut. She looked over her shoulder to see seven pairs of baby blue optics switching between looking at her and looking at the curious thing Sunstreaker was making for them.

Aria sighed and decided to keep her mouth shut. She and the younglings had looked all morning for a suitable tree-replacement before the twins had agreed to do it (for reasons of their own Aria was sure) and she didn't want to spend all afternoon searching too, especially now that the little bots were so excited to see their tree as soon as possible.

Besides, despite his pain-in-the-butt-superior-then-thou attitude, Sunstreaker knew his way around a welder. And while Aria would never say this in his audio-shot, he wasn't a bad artist either.

So she settled for just glowering up at the twins instead. "How did I even end up here in the first place?" She grumbled at herself. "You two are the _last_ bots _anybody _should ever take favors from."

Sideswipe grinned and Sunny huffed in annoyance, but neither one disputed the fact exactly.

"Aren't you a grateful one?" Sideswipe asked with a lopsided grin as he leaned an elbow against the edge of his brother's makeshift art table. At least, he leaned on it until Sunny reached out and smartly whacked his brother's shoulder, not even looking up from his renewed welding.

Aria blinked and looked over at Bumblebee standing next to her in the dim light to see he had the same look on his face. He really _was _acting like Ratchet now.

"If you didn't want our help then you should have kept your gremlins out of our room." Sunstreaker said, finally setting the torch down and straightening up to scrutinize his work so far.

Aria glared. "They're not gremlins!" She shouted just as Cloudraker piped, "Are you done yet Sunny?"

Sunstreaker ignored Aria completely. "No." He told the mini Seeker. "But I got all the torches on there and hooked together so they'll turn on with one switch. The rest will go faster now."

In the background, Fastlane, Val, and the twins groaned. "Man!" Val whined. "This is taking _forever_."

Aria saw Sunny roll his optics as he vented a frustrated sigh. Identifying the warning signs of an immanent meltdown (from one side or the other really) she quickly stepped in before the clock struck zero.

"How about you guys go find some more ornaments for the tree then?" She suggested. "That way we can decorate it as soon as Sunny's done."

An almost silent mumble of relief swept over the little group as the younglings got to their feet and headed out the door of the dark room, but only after making sure the coast was clear. The only reason the twins had agreed to make them their tree in the first place was if they swore up and down that they would never, _ever_, tell _anyone_ that they had been the ones to make it in the first place. The little bots figured that that also include not letting mechs like Prowl see Sunny working too.

"Aren't you coming Aria?" Bumblebee asked from the door.

Aria turned to look at him from where she was still standing near the twin's impromptu work surface, careful to avoid any stray sparks. "In a little bit 'Bee. I want to talk to the twins a little first."

Not thinking much of it, Bumblebee nodded. "Alright then. See you later Jie Mei."

Aria waved as the door closed behind her littlest bot. When it had, Aria turned back towards the twins, but didn't say anything. Clearly she just wanted to watch them as they worked on the younglings' Christmas tree.

"What? Don't you trust us Aria?" Sideswipe asked when he saw what was going on.

Aria stared at him. "No." She told him simply.

Sunny vented a snort of laughter. "You're smarter then I thought." He mumbled.

Aria re-crossed her arms in annoyance as she glowered up at the twins. When they didn't say anything else, she said somewhat pointedly, "Rather out of character for you guys to do something out of charity."

The twins were not fooled when she tried to sound like she was only thinking out loud. "I like a challenge." Sunny mumbled as he continued to work, adjusting a different miniature sized welding torch that was on the other side of the tree.

Aria frowned. "Yeah right." She mumbled to herself.

A nano klik later, understanding came along and smacked her upside the head.

"Hey wait a minute!" She exclaimed, spinning around to face the twins again. "You're not doing this for the younglings. You're just trying to get rid of your extra contraband stuff before Prowl finds it!"

The gold and silver mechs stared at Aria as if this was the most obvious revelation in the world.

"Well duh." Sideswipe said.

Aria spent the next few seconds speaking in nonsensical noises.

When Sunstreaker had gotten tired of hearing the various, "Why you!'s", he straightened up and leaned his hands on the table in front of him, all the better to stare down at Aria.

"Look," he said slowly, "do you want your tree or not?"

Aria's mouth dropped open. She stared in silence a cycle before remembering to snap it closed.

"Dangit!" She hissed.

Sunny interpreted her answer as a roundabout 'yes' and got back to work.

Pouting slightly at being maneuvered into a corner like that, (Where else was she going to find a Christmas tree after all?) Aria turned away from the twins, arms settled defensively over her chest as she glared hotly at the wall.

The twins ignored her in return. Sunny was too busy focused on his creation and Sides, well, Aria was pretty sure Sides was just doing it to annoy her.

Stubbornly refusing to let the silver mech win at this game, Aria began singing softly to herself. "O cyber tree, o cyber tree, how lovely are thy wrenches. O cyber tree! O cyber tree! You leave no room for, er," she verbally stumbled before finishing on a warbly note, "fences!"

Sideswipe snickered above her, losing at his own game. "Nice save." He told her.

Aria ignored him, and then a moment later laughed as more words jumped into her brain. "I am from Earth, I use green trees! To satisfy, my Christmas needs!"

By now both the twins were staring at her. They shared a look, privately asking if this was an organic sign of mental stress and/or a possible psychiatric breakdown on Aria's part.

Unaware of their staring, or the fact that she was now singing fairly loud, Aria finished with a laugh, "O cyber tree! O cyber tree! You are an alien fineryyyyyy!"

She only became aware of her audience when one of them abruptly cackled behind her.

Aria spun around, face turning red as Sideswipe continued to laugh. She thought he wanted to say something about her impromptu lyrics (not that he knew the originals…) but he was too busy laughing to get the words out.

Aria felt her face heat up as an embarrassed red color overtook her face. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a startled squeak, not unlike what the younglings made when someone snuck up on them.

Sideswipe was now laughing so hard that the only reason he was still standing was because of the desk he was leaning on. Even Sunny had cracked a smile at her.

In the face of such overwhelming mortification, Aria snapped her mouth shut (again) and jerked a thumb at the door behind her.

"I'm-" she stuttered, "I'm just gonna-"

The twins just stared at her, grinning like idiots.

Aria quickly cleared her throat. "I'm gonna go."

And then she ducked her head and quickly scurried out the door.

The twins continued to snicker even after the door had shut.

"That was great." Sideswipe said through his laughter.

"And we didn't even have to do anything." Sunstreaker pointed out.

Then they stood there in sudden silence and pinned their optics on the door.

Nothing.

Sunstreaker suddenly elbowed his brother and jerked his head at a perfectly normal-looking wall panel. "Quick, get the rest of the stuff before they come back!"

With a lopsided grin, Sideswipe went over and, after dramatically twisting his fingers around to loosen them up, shoved the wall panel they made sure always looked as normal as possible, for Prowl's benefit of course.

A well oiled, near silent, transformation started when the panel had sunk back slightly into the wall. Not-as-normal-looking wall panels slid and flipped, receding to either side as a large, hollowed out section opened up in the middle of their wall.

The twins waited almost a full cycle for the transformation to finish. When the hushed movement of the wall had finally ceased, the twins' secret stash was fully revealed.

The hidey-hole nearly took up the whole side wall, and despite appearances it was fairly deep. However right now it was so crammed full of illegal objects that it looked about half of its actual size.

"It's a good thing Aria came along when she did," Sideswipe said as he began pulling various wrenches out of the whole (most of which had been thrown at their heads by Ratchet at one point or another), "we were almost out of room."

Sunny snorted as he started planning where to put each of the confiscated tools. "Almost?" He asked sarcastically.

Sideswipe just shrugged. "And here we were wondering how to get rid of all this stuff without Prowl catching us."

"He's still going to know it came from us." Sunny pointed out.

Sides' grinned wider. "Yeah, but even Prowl wouldn't dare to confiscate the younglings' weird tree…thing." He looked down at the stick-like structure his brother was using as a foundation for the younglings' organic decoration.

"Or at the very least I don't think Prime and the others will let him." Sideswipe added.

Sunstreaker nodded. "True enough. Now hand me Prowl's old datapad. I need to gut it for this 'tree topper' thing."

Sideswipe grabbed said datapad – nearly starting an avalanche of industrial glue they had confiscated from Wheeljack in the process since it had been one of the very first things they had ever, eh, _absconded _with – with his usual grin. "Working out some frustrations there Sunny?"

His brother just snorted at him. "Just hand me the dang thing bro."

Sideswipe slapped the datapad into his brother's hand before he continued his earlier loitering around the work table.

With a practiced movement, Sunstreaker cracked open the datapad, separating the outward covers at the seam that ran around the edge. Discarding the back cover – its only purpose was to protect the internals of the datapad so it wouldn't serve any point on the 'tree' – Sunny began to sort through the datapad's wiring. He had just found the component he wanted when he noticed Sideswipe fidgeting out of the corner of his optic.

He sighed. Sideswipe fidgeting was never a good omen.

"Don't even think about it." He told his brother when he realized why he was fidgeting in the first place.

"It's a little late for that bro." Sideswipe said as he continued to dance in place, hoping physical motion would help him resist the sudden impulse.

"Don't do it." Sunstreaker ordered, not looking up from where he was now welding a rusty old wrench in place to act as an oddly shaped tree branch.

Sideswipe fidgeted even more. "I got to. I can't help it. Otherwise it's just going to be stuck in my processor for the rest of the orn."

Sunstreaker leaned his head back and sighed in resignation. If it was stuck in Sideswipe's processor then it wouldn't be long till it was stuck in his.

_"Dang twin bond." _ He grumbled to himself. Sideswipe grinned, knowing what Sunny had thought.

"Alright fine!" Sunny groaned. "Just don't get it stuck in _my_ processor while you're at it!"

Sideswipe just grinned at his brother. And then gave into the urge to burst into song.

"O cyber tree! O cyber tree! How perfect is your silhouette!" He sang out loudly.

Sunstreaker's sudden grin was no less mischievous then his brother's. "O cyber tree! O cyber tree! Sunny made you so be proud of that!"

"He made you frooooom the stuff we hoard!" Sides called, somewhere between singing and shouting in tune.

"That we claaaaaimed when we got bored!" Sunny returned with a cackle.

Suddenly both twins wrapped an arm around the other's shoulder and swayed together as they finished grandly. "O cyber tree! O cyber tree! You are the cure for our piraaacyyyy!"

Song over, both mech's snickered. And then the silence returned. Sideswipe had stopped fidgeting now, letting Sunstreaker work in peace.

At least until he started humming.

Sideswipe grinned widely at the musical hum coming from his brother.

"Song stuck in your head now ain't it bro?" He asked.

Sunny threw a frustrated glance at his brother.

"Ah, shaddup." He grumbled before getting back to work on the younglings' Christmas tree.


	3. Chapter 3: My Very Own White Christmas

Wow, finally got this done. Whew! It took a lot longer then I expected, especially after those last two just flew onto the page. n_n; It turned out to be longer then I anticipated, but that's okay because I wanted to introduce Red Alert before I really focus on him later (_much _later ;3) and I had to make sure to polish off what happened to the younglings' new tree. ;) I was trying to draw a picture of it the other day when I was feeling bad. It looks really funny. xP I'll put it up sometimes when it's done if you want to see it. :3

Anyway, I would really like to thank all of my reviewers for their lovely words! Pyroth Tenka, Trapezoidal, Autobotgirl2234, and Lynn Jones, you are all awesome! :3 And I'm really glad you liked our new lyrics for O Christmas Tree. xP Such fun!

Also, announcement! Since tomorrow's Christmas and I have a bunch of chapters planned out but not written, I'm giving myself til the end of the year to get this finish, so watch out for more updates over the next week! Oh, and if you see any typos and such, I'm sorry. I finished it just last night and I really wanted to get it up as soon as I could. So here we are. n_n;

Wow...I just heard that we have a tornado alert on Christmas tomorrow! :O What the heck? First it's warm enough to wear skirts and then we might get a tornado?! I'm telling you Houston has the _weirdest _weather _ever._ I mean _seriously_.

:) Well hopefully it'll be okay. And I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! ::Hearts!:: :D

...

Feels Like Christmas

3 – My Very Own White Christmas – 3

_"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas__  
__Just like the ones I used to know__  
__Where the tree tops glisten__  
__And children listen__  
__To hear sleigh bells in the snow"_

The Autobot's Christmas tree appeared quite suddenly and mysteriously one afternoon shortly after Aria had stalked out of the twins' room in sheer embarrassment. It caused quite a stir, given that none of the bots had ever seen one before.

"What's it supposed to even be?" Cliffjumper asked as he stared at the strange sculpture that had appeared in the rec room sometime in the past hour.

Hound answered before Aria could. "It's a tree…at least," he cocked his head to the side as he looked the strange concoction up and down, "I think it's a tree."

On the other side of the possible tree-thing, Trailbreaker was giving the strange object a similar inspection. "It…_kinda_ looks like a tree." He said slowly.

_Kinda_ was an apt description. The tree-monster was actually a rough conglomeration of strange metallic objects that had been assembled in a roughly conical structure. There were distinct layers of objects, with the biggest, widest layer at the bottom and the skinniest one at the top. The bottommost layer was constructed of wide sheets of torn metal that vaguely resembled the spiny branches Aria had told them about, but other than that none of the other layers had branch-looking objects. Instead they had old wrenches, various pipes, and even some stiff plugs with multi-connections fanned out to cover more surface area, all of varying lengths and sizes. The topmost layers were actually made up of old cogs, each getting smaller with the topmost one being so small that would have fit on Aria's finger like a ring. On the very top, sprouting like some kind of mechanical vegetable, appeared to be the inner workings of a very unfortunate datapad.

Cliffjumper's muttered, "What the heck?" Seemed to express everyone's thoughts quite nicely.

Red Alert was having a particularly bad reaction to the tree-like object.

"Alright," he said sternly after taking a fully cycle to peer unblinkingly at one of the mini-welders that, like everything else, were welded to the pole that ran up the center of the 'tree'. "Who did this? Someone must have seen who put this _thing_ in here."

If anybody did, they decided not to volunteer the information.

The overprotective security director scowled at the room's occupants briefly before pinning his optics back on the suspicious tree, as if he was afraid of what it might do if he took his optics off of it.

Off to the side, Cliffjumper rolled his own optics at him. This was ridiculous, and it hadn't exactly been 'sane' to start with.

Red Alert's scowl deepened, but it was hard to tell if he was becoming more irritated with the tree or the other mechs' indifference since he was still glaring at the tree.

"This is a direct offense against my security protocols!" He hissed, still glaring at the tree-thing. "Who knows where this..._contraband_ came from! Who knows what's even _in it!_" He insisted, subtly leaning away from the tree as if the 'contraband' would suddenly reach out of the tree and bite him. "This could all be a clever camouflage for a Decepticon trick! They could be listening to us _right __**now**_."

Half the mechs in the room ran a sensors sweep almost unconsciously before realizing the same thing Cliffjumper had a moment ago; this was insane.

Near the back of the room, Prowl stood frowning at the so called 'tree'. Unlike Red he felt certain that the only thing the tree was hiding were the plans of the two brightly colored big-mouths standing against the wall and trying not to look too smug. Any _contraband_ the tree-monster had within it belonged solely to them. Or at least, it had been before they had tried to foist it off as some kind of Earth foliage.

_"Well that's going to change right now," _Prowl thought as he straightened up and began to march sternly over to where the twins were loitering.

A blur of colors not even half his sized suddenly tumbling past him made him stop mid-march.

"It's here!"

"Yay! Lemme see! Lemme see!"

"Hey! Quit pushing Skids I wanna see too!"

"Stop it! You're gonna knock it over!"

"Ooo...it's all shiny like Jie Mei said."

"Jie Mei! Jie Mei! Look at it!"

"Isn't it pretty Aria?"

Aria followed the eager younglings at a slower pace, but from the smile on her face Prowl thought she was just as excited as them about the...'tree'.

"It's very pretty Cloud'." She agreed as she looked the thing up and down approvingly, hands propped on her hips as she did. "I guess we made a good choice after all."

As the grown-ups watched the little bots with varying grins on their faces (except for Red Alert, who was still eyeing the tree, and Prowl, who was still eyeing the twins) Arcee reached out a tentative hand and gently touched one of the lowest branches on the tree. She had barely brushed it when it shifted, rubbing against its neighboring branches and sending a musical jangle through the room.

The only femmeling jumped back in surprise, but quickly laughed, twittering happily in the younglings'' baby language.

The rest of the young bots all stepped closer, talking to each other in squeaks and chirps as they discovered what other parts of the tree made musical sounds. Behind them the adults laughed quietly to themselves as the little ones wandered around the tree with bright, curious optics. Well, all except Red Alert, who was standing stiffly nearby, hands partially outstretched as if he was ready to snatch away the younglings from the tree-monster at any moment.

Then one of the little bots found a switch at the tree's base and gave it an experimental flick to see what it did.

With a soft, chorused _thwoom!_ each of the mini-welders connected to the tree suddenly came to life, startling more than just the younglings. To Aria, the gently flickering flames looked like so many Christmas lights spread around the tree. To everyone else, it looked like the thing was one step closer to spontaneously combusting.

This time Red Alert really did snatch up the closest youngling as little fires suddenly appeared around the tree-monster. Bumblebee gave a startled squeak as he was suddenly snatched up by the panicky Red Alert and then awkwardly held in the air away from the security director's body.

Aria felt her mouth drop open as she watched the grown mech sweep up her little brother. She wasn't even sure how to react when Bumblebee curled up on himself anxiously since there was no stable frame for him to hold on to like he was used to. Aria gaped at the bot, but didn't say anything, afraid she would startle Red into suddenly dropping her _di di_.

Red Alert hardly noticed Bumblebee's nervous posture since he was now staring madly at the flaming Christmas tree, tensely waiting for it to attack.

No one moved for a long moment to keep from unnerving Red Alert further. But then Bumblebee started to whine distressingly, not liking how it felt to be held in thin air without anything safe to hold onto like he was used to.

Red Alert finally dragged his attention away from the impending doom of the Christmas tree and stared at Bumblebee with uncertain optics.

"Why's he doing that?" He asked quickly. "It's that _thing_ scaring him isn't it? Don't worry small mech I won't let the tree-monster eat you." Red Alert didn't sound very comforting as he shifted Bee a little farther from the tree.

Bumblebee stopped whining...but only because he started to cry instead.

From off to the side, Hound sighed. "Alright there Red," he said coming forward and calmly taking the little mech from Red Alert, "quit scaring the poor kid. It ain't any kind of monster and it's not going to eat anybody." He told them, sounding very sure of himself, like he was trying to talk someone down. Although, no one there was one hundred percent certain that he was talking to Bumblebee either...

The dark green tracker whirred soothingly to the little yellow mechling as he pulled Bumblebee close and let him wrap his small arms around his neck for comfort. The six other small bots quickly crowded around Hound's feet, all chirping their own questions to see if Bee had escaped the Trauma-Bot (as they had so affectionately dubbed Red Alert) unscathed.

Seeing that her littlest mech was well taken care of, Aria turned her undivided attention to Red Alert.

"Red," she snapped as she scowled up at him, "what are you _doing?_"

Red Alert kept his optics fixated firmly on the so-called tree. "I'm investigating a threat. What's it look like I'm doing?" He snapped back.

Aria raised one eyebrow at him. "It's a tree." She told him point blank.

"It appeared here quite mysteriously and with no apparent purpose other than to shake our nerve and burn the base down."

"It's a _tree._" She said again.

Red slanted a look at her. "You don't know that for sure."

Aria scowled at him and then flung an arm out at the tree-monster. "It's. A. _Tree."_ She said again.

Before Red Alert could do more than scowl, Skids piped up, "It's _our_ tree."

That gave Red Alert pause.

The security director's gaze immediately found the little green mechling, who immediately wished he hadn't said anything at all.

"_You're_ tree?" Red Alert inquired suspiciously, although Aria would be the first to admit it could have just been his normal tone of voice by now. "And just what makes this..._thing_," he jerked an incriminating digit at the offending tree, "_yours_?"

Skids toed the ground with one uncomfortable foot and held his hands behind his back nervously. "Well," he said carefully, "we ordered it."

"To do what?" Sideswipe quickly asked, earning an elbow jab from his brother and a suspicious look from Prowl. From the corner of her eyes, Aria noticed that Sideswipe only gave a lopsided smile and absentmindedly rubbed at his side as he went back to watching Red and the younglings, who were back to ignoring him after a cursory glance in his direction.

"What do you mean," Red Alert asked Skids slowly, "that you _ordered_ it?"

Skids blinked at him, and then looked over at his brother who was now standing next to him. "Well," Mudflap spoke up this time, "he means we wanted a tree-"

Red Alert's optics narrowed. "Uh-huh..."

"-so we asked someone to make one for us."

"And they did!" Skids added, feeling the need to say something since he'd been the one asked in the first place.

Mudflap nodded. "And we like it even if you don't."

Both mechlings then stuck out their tongues at Red Alert with simultaneous, "Nah!"s.

Red Alert blinked at the sudden display, for an instant losing his trademark suspicious look, but then it returned in full force.

"And just _who_," he put so much stress on the word that Aria thought he sounded like an owl, "did you ask to make you this tree?"

_"Finally, we're getting somewhere."_ Aria thought, noticing that Red Alert had dropped the 'so called' from the word 'tree'.

Mudflap opened his mouth wide to answer, but was cut off when Skids suddenly elbowed him in the side. Instead of a name, a startled yelp jumped out of the mechling's mouth instead.

He shot his twin the sharp look that usually preceded a throw down, but stopped when he saw Skids shaking his head meaningfully at him.

Suddenly remembering that they weren't allowed to tell anyone who had made them their tree, Mudflap gave a long, "Oh...right."

And then instantly clammed up.

Meanwhile, Red Alert was still waiting for an answer.

"Well?" He prompted when the twins only stared at him with deceptively wide optics.

The twins shared a look before turning back to Red.

"We forgot!" They chirped together.

They weren't fooling anyone, least of all Red. But unlike everyone else, he did not find the display in any way cute or funny and he gave every bot that laughed at the mechlings' an evil optic so potent that it nearly rivaled Prowl's.

Meanwhile the real Prowl was still standing in the background, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

"Oh Primus," he muttered to himself, "all this over a so-called tree-monster..."

He shot a sharp look at the offending object, sitting quietly in its spot against the wall. The younglings, now quite recovered from their scare with Red, were all clustered around it once again, admiring it from their limited height. The mini-twins escaped from Red to join them and then quickly started fussing over the bottommost layer of the 'tree'.

"We gotta make it higher so that the Santa-man can fit all of our presents under it!" Skids insisted as he shoved with all of his little might on the torn up pieces of metal that ringed the tree.

Prowl's optics immediately focused in on the struggling younglings. "Santa-man? What's a Santa-man? Aria!" He spun on the girl who was now arguing fiercely with the Autobot's security direction. "What's a Santa-man and why is he leaving us things?!" He demanded, rather loudly for, well...him.

Aria started to turn around, mouth open to tell whoever was yelling at her now to just shut up for a minute, but stopped when she saw it was Prowl.

She blinked at him in confusion.

Prowl didn't back down. He had learned after the very first organic-holiday event - what was now widely known as the Easter Fiasco - that Aria's so called 'festivities' were nothing but a thinly concealed organic nightmare. If there was a file out there big enough to hold all of the paperwork that had come from Aria's celebrations, Prowl would have labeled it in big, red letters, '_AVOID AT ALL COSTS'_.

Aria was still staring up in concern up at Prowl. "Huh? Oh, you mean Santa Claus? He's nothing to worry about Prowl. He doesn't really ex-"

Aria suddenly stopped talking, and slid an anxious look over at her younglings standing nearby. They were still admiring their tree. Now that they were finally excited about Santa Claus she couldn't exactly tell them that _she_ was really the one who'd be delivering them presents now could she?

Above her, Prowl just narrowed his optics at her.

"I mean, uh-" Aria stammered quickly, "that he isn't dangerous. He comes once a year on Earth to give presents to good little kids. And I've managed to convince him to come here too for once." She beamed up at him, proud of her verbal recovery.

If Prowl had been anyone less than himself, he would have made a face at Aria. As it was, his narrowed optics continued to bore into her.

Standing next to him, grinning in _his_ usual way, Jazz appeared to be having the exact opposite reaction as Prowl's.

"This Santa-man sounds like one cool cat." He observed in his unusual mix of Earth words. "You should have asked him to come 'round sooner Aria."

Aria grinned nervously. "Yeah I know. I can't believe I didn't think of this before."

Other mechs in the room were chuckling now. Prowl wasn't one of them. Actually he had no idea what they found so funny in the first place. An organic was going to sneak into their base and just leave them things? What did he want? What was the point of this? And how did this constitute a holiday?

Prowl mentally shook himself. If he kept asking himself questions like that, he'd end up in a twitching heap on the floor. And he wasn't about to give Sunny and Sides that kind of satisfaction.

"Jie Mei! Jie Mei!" Fastlane suddenly cried, running up to his sister. "Do you think that if I'm extra special good that the Santa-man will get me a sonic flight engine like Smokerunner's?" He asked, nearly jumping out of his armor with excitement.

"Or maybe some heel struts like Chromia's?" Arcee asked in a more uncertain voice. She tried to avoid asking for 'girly' things in front of the other younglings. Skids and Mudflap in particular would never let her forget about it.

Aria made a face. "Er...I think you might be a little young for heel struts 'Cee. And you know well and good that Smokerunner said you weren't allowed to have a sonic engine until you knew how to fly with _this_ engine Fastlane. Santa listens to guardians too."

Fastlane made a face. "Fine," he grumbled.

Cloudraker looked more curious. "If the Santa-man doesn't give things like that," he asked slowly, "then what _does_ he give?"

Aria smiled. "Toys." She told them. "Games. Fun things like that."

Cloudraker shuttered one optic in thought. "So..." he drew the word out, "if I asked for a new virtual reality game, I'd get it?" He asked loudly, optics bright.

Aria grinned almost secretively and threw a wink at Jazz, who chuckled. "I _think_ that could be arranged Cloud."

Cloudraker's optics were almost white with excitement. Aria's yes sent an excited round of clicks through the youngling ranks as they discussed the possibilities of this, making the adults laugh quietly to themselves.

Understanding suddenly dawned on Prowl. "This is for the younglings!" He said with more emotion then he had meant.

Off to the side, Sunny and Sides snickered. "_Now_ he gets it."

Prowl scowled at them, but Jazz just laughed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "You got it Prowler. Santa-man's only here for the kiddies. Try not to look too disappointed."

Prowl slanted his friend a sour look. "As long as this doesn't turn out like Halloween." He muttered pointedly. If he ever heard Michael Jackson's _Thriller_ again he was going to take a flying leap off the tallest building in the city.

Jazz loudly laughed. "Oo boy!" He crowed, holding his sides as he laughed so hard it made them hurt. "That was the best one yet!"

Prowl did the best thing he could; he ignored his friend. He still hadn't forgiven him for 'haunting' him.

Aria meanwhile was watching her brood with a grin. "Wow, they took to that quick enough."

The younglings didn't hear her though and went on chattering excitedly to each other in the chirps, squeaks, and whistles that made up Cybertronian baby-language.

Unable to understand them, Aria stopped bothering to try and decipher their chatter. Instead she turned toward their new Christmas tree and propped her hands up on her hips as she inspected it. She grinned soon enough.

"I really like those welding torches as candles." She said to no one in particular. Then with a happy sigh she added, "Now all we need is some snow and it'd be the most perfect, Christmas-y scene!" She exclaimed proudly.

_That_ Prowl heard.

"It doesn't snow here Aria." He told her matter-of-factly. "You should know that by now."

Aria frowned up at him, annoyed that he was ruining her Christmas joy with logic.

Prowl didn't even notice as he looked inward, wondering how he could survive this human holiday without glitching...

But Aria wasn't done with him yet. "But it could snow." She told him stubbornly. "It's not very likely, but it could."

Her insistence managed to drag Prowl's attention away from his impending survival-er...Christmas plans.

He frowned down at her, confused by her strange insistence. "No it couldn't. It's not possible."

Aria returned Prowl's scowl with interest. "But I want it to snow." She told him.

Prowl wondered how that was supposed to solve anything. "Want it or not you're not getting any snow."

"As far as you know." Aria returned.

Prowl blinked. "I'm not sure if that makes sense Aria."

Aria blinked up at him. Inwardly she wondered how his pointing out her _possible_ mistakes made anything better.

Seeing that he wasn't really getting anywhere, Prowl groaned quietly. He had no idea about any other humans since he didn't know any, but based on Aria's example, he felt fairly safe in thinking that as a race they were generally overly stubborn and, therefore, more than a little annoying.

"Aria," Prowl said slowly as if that would help her see just how unreasonable she was being, "have you ever seen clouds on Cybertron?" He asked her carefully.

Aria thought about it, looking up and putting a finger to her chin. "Nope." She finally answered lightly.

Prowl nodded like a teacher when a student recited back the right answer. "And have you ever seen it rain here?"

Aria didn't take as long to think this time. "Not really, no." She told him.

Prowl nodded again. "Have you ever even seen water outside of the city?"

Aria blinked. "Nuh-uh. Don't think I have." And then frowned. "Come to think of it your definition of 'water' doesn't exactly match up with mine..." She'd figured that out after that near disastrous swimming incident...

Prowl nodded rather decisively a third and final time. "Exactly. And without clouds, without rain, without _water_, how could it possibly snow here?" This last question was purely rhetorical.

Aria answered him anyway with a very large smile. "Christmas magic of course."

Prowl nearly glitched on the spot. He could practically feel his logic processor dropping out of his head. The only thing that kept him from going into stasis-lock altogether was the fact that he could hear the twins' snickering on the other side of the room.

"Twenty creds he keels over in the next ten kliks." Sunny whispered.

There was a slap as the two sealed the bet. "You're on." Sides whispered back.

For Prowl there was more than twenty credits on the line. Needing to get the argument back on track so he wouldn't end up twitching on the floor with the entire rec room audience laughing at him, Prowl forcibly turned his attention back to Aria.

"Aria," he said, kneeling down to be closer to the human's eye level, "as much as I know you don't want to hear it, I feel perfectly safe in telling you that it will. Not. _Snow_."

Aria blinked sweetly up at him. "But I want snow." She said again.

"But it won't snow."

"But I like snow."

"Like it or not it's not going to snow!" Prowl barked.

Aria blinked up at him. "As far as you know."

Steam just about sizzled off of the mech.

Aria just giggled.

Prowl's optics locked onto her at the sound. He suddenly had the very strong feeling that she was doing this just to annoy him...

Needing to get out of here before the human's wishful thinking really got in him trouble, Prowl did the only thing that would let him get out of here without anymore embarrassment and frustration then he'd already suffered.

He got up and left.

Aria waited until the door had shut behind the stiff black and white mech before she giggled.

"Well that was fun." She laughed before the younglings ended up grabbing hold of her attention once again. She didn't give a second thought to her snow argument for the rest of the day.

...

Seeing as she had only been trying to drive Prowl crazy earlier, Aria hadn't _really _expected it to snow, no matter how hard she wished for it, but then...

"Prowl! Prowl! You've got to come see this!"

The black and white mech looked up from his work just in time to see Aria slide into view. The little human was smiling from ear to ear with joy, like a kid at, well, Christmas.

Prowl followed the excited human with his eyes as she darted across the room, nearly ran into the front of his desk, spun round in an odd circle, and then ran up to Prowl's ankle. From there she beamed up at him with bright eyes.

Prowl waited for the inevitable.

"Prowl! Prowl!" She called up breathlessly. "Prowl it's snowing outside!"

If anything, Prowl's face grew even sterner. "Aria please-" he started to say.

But she was already shaking her head. "No, no I mean it Prowl. It's _snowing_ outside!"

Prowl vented a sigh. "Yes Aria, I get it. You want snow. But no matter how much you want it to snow it's-"

"_Snowing outside right now!"_ Aria finished for him.

Prowl raised an optic ridge at her, but before he could get the words out, Aria rolled her eyes at him.

"And I can prove it! Just come on, come on!" She wrapped her hands around the edges in his boot and began to pull at him to get him to hurry up. It was a futile gesture of course, but the message was clear enough, even to Prowl.

Venting a deep sigh, Prowl put his stylus down. "Alright _fine_." He said as he stood up from his desk. "Show me this proof."

Aria grinned and giggled, obviously giddy about this assumed 'snow'. With a resigned sigh, Prowl let her pull him forward.

She got tired of pulling at him by the time they reached the office door and darted ahead instead. There was a window at the end of the hall, reinforced to withstand barrages of Seeker fire. The panes were covered in so much grime that Prowl could hardly see through them from this distance. About halfway down the hall though he caught sight of movement coming from the other side of the window.

Prowl's gait stuttered and he squinted at the window. This couldn't be right. The movement was coming from peculiar, little white things. They were drifting down from up above and piling up on the window shelf outside.

By the time they reached the window, Prowl's mouth was actually hanging open. There was no denying it. It was, without a doubt-

"Snow," Aria giggled, "It's really _snow_."

Girl and mech stared another at the softly drifting specks as they floated past the dirty window. And then Aria gave a squeak and started hopping up and down in thrilled excitement.

"It's actually _snowing!"_ She abruptly hollered as she hopped. "Aha!" She laughed in giddy joy.

Prowl managed to tear his attention away from the impossible snowstorm long enough to look down at his human companion. For a moment he thought this was only some elaborate 'I told you so'.

But then he saw the look on her face. Her eyes were bright, like the younglings when they had first learned how to transform. It had been new and exciting and even he had cracked a smile when he'd seen them slowly fumbling through each step in their different transformations before zipping around on newly discovered wheels. She was watching the dirty window as if it was the greatest thing on the planet and each little white puff of snow was a miracle in and of itself.

Prowl watched his human friend as her eyes followed a snowflake gently drifting past the dirty pane, and then when that disappeared, her eyes darted up and found another flake to follow. She giggled again and bit her lip in anticipation.

This wasn't an 'I told you so', Prowl realized. Aria was just happy. Happy and eager to share this miracle with him.

Prowl felt himself smile, just a little. He wasn't used to others just wanting to share something like this with him. That was usually reserved for friends, and even Prowl knew he didn't have all that many. Even before the war had started he'd been a loner. He had either had no time or inclination to listen to other bots' personal problems. Still wasn't really. Only now he had friends despite that, no matter how much he tended to protest...

Aria was one of those strange friends, Prowl knew, despite her stubbornness and organic strangeness and his equal tenacity and overly logical thinking.

Right now everything beyond the window was shouting at Prowl that this couldn't really be happening. It did not _snow_ on Cybertron. It was _not_ even physically possible. And yet, here it was, covering the landscape before in a white blanket that was quite pretty in its simplicity. The snow covered the tops of towering buildings, occasionally slipping off of the more precarious rooftops to fall in white clumps to the far off ground.

Maybe his central processor had simply suffered a kind of mental break from the impossibility playing out in front of him, maybe this was Prowl's way of getting into the Christmas spirit, but for once, Prowl decided not to question the logic (or lack thereof). Instead he found he just wanted to stand there in the snow-muffled silence and watch the falling snow with Aria.

The strange pair looked past the dirty window at the new falling snow in a kind of awe neither had felt for a long time.

Eventually, Prowl spoke.

"I hope you have a good Christmas Aria." He told her quietly, not wanting to ruin the moment.

Aria looked away from the Christmas miracle beyond the window and smiled up at the stiff and stern former officer.

"Thanks Prowl." She murmured back with a cheerful grin. "And generally we say 'Merry Christmas' instead."

Prowl nodded at her in understanding. "I'll keep that in mind. And Aria?"

Aria looked up at him.

"Try not to drive everyone _too_ crazy with your Christmas joy." And then added a split second later, "Please, that is."

Aria didn't appear to offended as she smiled up at Prowl. "I'll try," she told him, eyes shining with forthcoming mischief, "but I can't make any promises."

The answering grin felt a little strange on Prowl's face. "For once," he told her slowly, "I think I can live with that."

Aria just giggled again as they turned back to watch the snow falling softly in front of them.

...

"Well would ya look at that?" Jazz murmured in no small amount of wonder as he watched his best bud and favorite organic alien watch the falling 'snow'. "I guess there's such a thing as Christmas miracles after all!"

"Prow's not glitching?" Hound asked from where he stood a few feet away. The green tracker had a giant tube held over one arm, a constant flurry of soft white powder blowing out of the far end before drifting down more slowly to cover the area directly beneath them.

Jazz snuck another look from behind their cover and grinned. "Nope," he said as he ducked back behind the decorative sculpture they'd set up shop behind, "he's just standing there, enjoyin' the view."

A soft whistle came from somewhere below them. "That's a first," Mirage said from...well wherever it was he was standing as he projected the illusion of snow covered rooftops for their miniature audience.

Jazz just chuckled. "Like I said, Christmas miracles."

The snow ran out a few minutes later, the source material apparently depleted. Prowl and Aria watched the unexpected landscape for a little while longer, but soon Prowl had to get back to work, and Aria joined him as he made his way back to his office, only sparing one last giddy look out the window as she left.

"Just what _is_ this stuff anyway?" Mirage's voice drifted up from below his co-conspirators. One of the miniature snow drifts that had piled up from their mech-made storm suddenly exploded to one side as an invisible foot kicked it.

Hound laughed as he put the hose down. "Oh, just some old building materials Grapple had lying around. It's that cement mixture that expired, oh, about forty orns ago."

Jazz could practically hear Mirage's optic ridge go up. "You mean the stuff he's been moaning about for the past orn because it's gone bad?"

Hound chuckled good naturedly again. "That's the stuff." He affirmed. "Turns out when this stuff expires it becomes all white and powdery." He picked up a handful of the snow replacement and let it sift through his fingers. If he'd been more familiar with human confections he would have thought it looked like sugar dusting the ground.

There was a soft _fzzt_ as Mirage deactivated his cloak a moment later. He reappeared next to the window Prowl and Aria had been staring out of, one hand propped up on his hip as he took in the sight of the snow replacement covering the three foot square patch of ground at his feet. Another moment later, the hologram snow that had appeared to be covering the surrounding rooftops faded away as well.

"Sooo..." the blue and white mech said slowly, toeing the 'snow' again, "what do we do with it now? We can't just leave it here can we?"

Jazz bent down and gathered up a large handful of the stuff in question, presumably to inspect it further. Mirage watched him a moment, waiting for an answer, as the special ops bot began to pat the stuff down, occasionally moving it around in his hands as the compacted powder took on a rough, spheroid shape.

When it became clear that Jazz was not going to answer him, Mirage sighed and turned towards Hound instead. Clever or not, Jazz could still be odd at times. There was just no telling sometimes what was going through that processor of his.

"So do we just leave it? I don't really see the point of cleaning it up. The wind will blow it away soon enough." Mirage addressed Hound now.

Hound shrugged, moving towards the edge of the roof and sending a cascade of snow down on top of Mirage. "I guess so. At this rate the only thing that'll happen if we clean it up is Prowl will think he's lost his marbles."

Mirage huffed a dry laugh. "Sounds like something the twins would do."

_Spaf!_

A white burst of snow suddenly exploded against Mirage's face, taking the blue and white spy by surprise. He jerked back, weapon half transforming out before he recognized the sound of laughter above his head.

Unamused, Mirage's optics slowly traveled upward. Jazz was leaning over the edge of the roof, laughing his head off at his uptight friend.

With quiet dignity, Mirage wiped the snow off of his face with slow, precise movements.

"I fail to see how that is so humorous." He grumbled up at Jazz.

"Don't be so uptight Raj," Jazz told him when his laughter had died down to chuckles. "Yer goin' give me a headache."

Mirage scowled up at Jazz. "It's _Mirage_, not _Raj_, and you well know it." He grumbled. "And I've already got a headache thanks to that," he patted the remaining snow dust off of his pristine chassis, "spheroid projectile you threw at me. Now are you going to help us figure out what to do with this snow or what?" He demanded.

Jazz didn't appear to be phased by his friend's fussiness.

"Oh don't worry" he drawled with a crooked grin, "I'm sure we'll think of somethin'."


End file.
